How did they get it so wrong? HealthCare.gov

[MannDude]

For those of us in the USA, they're trying to force us into buying health-care some of us don't want. Comically enough, after $500,000,000 (Yes, 500 million) dollars spent, the website simply doesn't work. It's all I've heard on the news for the past several weeks. People can not sign up, and if you do not sign  up, you will (eventually) be fined. They're pushing to get it up and running so it can support multiple visitors, but laughably no go yet.

Anyone have the technical information on what exactly is wrong? Obviously the news dumbs it down as their audience isn't literate in this discussion, but I can't believe something would be pushed and made public that is so horribly done

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act (Don't let the name fool you, most American's cost of insurance has increased dramatically)

 

[fizzyjoe908]

A small indie team from California built a similar website in just a couple weeks that has some of the same features as the government site - minus some of the most important features.

The point of that experiment was that they didn't necessarily need to spend all this time, money, and manpower on this one website. Misunderstanding seems to have been its greatest downfall.

 

[NodeBytes]

I'm going to stay out of the political side of this and look at it from a completely technical side.

Part of the issue is that the healthcare.gov site had to tap in to many external databases for each state and healthcare provider. This is not an easy thing to do when each one uses a different access protocol. Also, each state has different laws on what information should be grabbed and that had to be reviewed and coded into the new system. Then you have to sanitize your data inputs and make the code function correctly with many different systems.

Technically, this is a huge undertaking and they should have been testing it as they went through each feature. Plus, they probably never load tested the system to make sure it could handle the amount of traffic hitting the system at any given time.

 

[zzrok]

Someone in Washington thought they could simply will this site into existence.  Their naiveté bit them in the ass.

The longer version is that they designed a system that touches too many other government systems.  Integrating them all is no mean feat.  Hubris and government bureaucracy kept them from coming up with a simple system and then adding all the bells and whistles on as time allowed.

All that, and their seems to be some pretty shady stuff going on with one of their contractors: http://slashdot.org/story/13/11/16/2130247/lead-contractor-on-health-care-web-site-led-by-execs-from-troubled-it-company.

 

[drmike]

Socialism pays.

Heck they paid what?  A Canadian firm to develop this who outsources to where?  India? $500 million smackeroos.

As-if the US has no expertise in building such a system.  Hehe. 

Comrades, you've been fleeced again.  Wonder who got their special payments offshore from this kitty of cashola?

My question is where did Obamacare go so wrong that it got placed in "law"?   Next think you know they will be surcharging/taxing you for an exhaust tax just for breathing.

 

[Shados]

Technically, this is a huge undertaking and they should have been testing it as they went through each feature. Plus, they probably never load tested the system to make sure it could handle the amount of traffic hitting the system at any given time.

I read an article a couple of weeks back on this, apparently they did run some tests a few days before launch (but not all the tests they wanted to run, and only last-minute) and the tests indicated the system could not handle the expected load at all. They went ahead and released it anyway, knowing this, because of the political pressure to ship. I'll try and find the article for you later if someone else doesn't get to it before I have time .

 

[dano]

I'll go ahead and give my take on it: When I heard(2008) that was the plan for Obama, I supported the idea of a nationalized healthcare, where more people would get easier access to better care.

Today, I have found that I was very wrong, and the idea I had* supported, is no longer anything close to my vision of what it would look like. For me, being in my thirties, I am expected to fund the majority of this bill, since we are mostly well and make great money(really?). I checked what my rate would look like, and I would be paying nearly 3 times the amount I currently play with my employer.

What happens when my employer decides to drop our care and let us fend for ourselves in the "free market" of insurance? Well, I guess I will be paying 3 times more, while someone who isn't as young and fortunate can get a break on their coverage costs?

Healthcare.gov had an original price tag of 93million dollars - it has taken, at one estimate, $693 million, to make a web site for healthcare.gov? Tell me how, in any way, would it take that much to get a site launched...even with UltraDNS, Akamai, Amazon, and everything else that is high dollar, thrown at it?

Unhappy is an understatement to most americans - I would like to see the Health Care Act repealed asap, period. 

 

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

[SIZE=10.5pt]They could fix the connection to database issues by creating a caching server that gets updated daily or hourly depending on how much new data was updated, This can save much of the loading issue because it would then only have to worry about dealing with one server and not have to worry about all the different security protocol for each connection as each database request that has to get sent to all those systems for a few [/SIZE]queries[SIZE=10.5pt]. The caching server would get hit with all the request and that has it already scanned and stored so the amount of work it would be doing is a lot less. The amount of money they spent you would think they would hire people that were smart enough to design a system to handle the request of visitors and database [/SIZE]queries[SIZE=10.5pt]. We have a similar setup for an ubersmith system that handled billions of [/SIZE]queries[SIZE=10.5pt] a minute with no issues.[/SIZE]

 

[NodeBytes]

[SIZE=10.5pt]They could fix the connection to database issues by creating a caching server that gets updated daily or hourly depending on how much new data was updated, This can save much of the loading issue because it would then only have to worry about dealing with one server and not have to worry about all the different security protocol for each connection as each database request that has to get sent to all those systems for a few [/SIZE]queries[SIZE=10.5pt].[/SIZE]

The problem here isn't the interaction between the databases and the websites, it's the fact that each database would have to be integrated using their own API. Some are TCP based, others socket, others are proprietary. Each would have it's own system to interact with and the developers would have to create a way to interact with each. Then you have the fact that some are SQL based and other NoSQL based and so on...

 

[Enterprisevpssolutions]

Agreed they will have a few different database types to work with but the main one that is interfacing with the website that users are connecting to should only be tied to a caching server so it doesn't have to scan all the databases in all the systems. The backend and the site are both broken because of improper planning.

 

[VPSCorey]

Also does not help that they only expected about 5 states to not do their own system, and in the end most red states did not implement their own solutions so the scope expanded to a good portion of the national population.  Had the states gone ahead and done their own systems we might just of had a few complaints about state X sucking rather than the whole system essentially being a problem.

Also apparently Terramark is no longer hosting the system it's on a private HP cloud which is an interesting development I heard from IT friend in California today. 

 

[drmike]

Verizon or HP, no matter.   Why didn't they host in Canada too?

I am wondering if the fair and open competitive contract bid process was adhered to?

I could build/have built this system for $10 million or less.  Government is delusional money laundering on this whole issue.

 

[InertiaNetworks-John]

The biggest thing that I am mad about is that they spent the $500 mil out of the country!

 

[sundaymouse]

Still glad that we've got something called NHS here...

 

[vRozenSch00n]

For those of us in the USA, they're trying to force us into buying health-care some of us don't want. 

It is contagious apparently, Indonesian government also planning to adopt that program.

I doubt that it will work as the minimum wage in East Java only around USD75, and minimum wage in Jakarta is around USD245. Too many people are forced to fast almost the entire year. :mellow:

 

[texteditor]

Still glad that we've got something called NHS here...

Really, really wish we could pull that off here in the US but Americans generally suck